Emasculating Agency: An Unambiguous Assessment of Albert Luthuli's Stance on Violence

Abstract The nationalist narrative that Albert Luthuli received in December 1961 the Nobel Peace Prize for his unambiguous advocacy of strict non-violent methods to fight Apartheid and the next week supported the launch of the armed struggle is historographic oxymoron. Nationalist pundits decry that the acknowledgement of such a gross contradiction ‘distances Luthuli from his movement’. Or, they confess that ‘all nascent countries adopt myth’ in the interests of nation building. Or, they simply deny the contradiction exists by introducing ‘ambiguity’. The author asserts that Luthuli held and articulated an unambiguous stance against the use of violence within the South African context during the 1950s and 1960s. The author suggests that Nelson Mandela, at best, undermined Luthuli and, at worst, committed insubordination by launching uMkhonto we Sizwe without the ANC and Luthuli's knowledge or assent. The author utilises archival evidence to resolve irreconcilable differences in nationalist historiography and seeks to restore Luthuli's agency by resisting his absorption into Mandela's ‘cult of personality’. Keywords: Albert and Nokukhanya LuthuliAfrican National Congress (ANC)Apartheidtheologynon-violent resistance uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK)Nobel Peace PrizeNelson MandelaDesmond TutuJacob Zuma Notes 1R. Suttner, ‘“The Road to Freedom Is via the Cross”: “Just Means” in Chief Albert Luthuli's Life’, South African Historical Journal, 62, 4 (2010), 693–715. 2Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693, 694–695, 699, 702, 704–705, 707. 3Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. 4Exceptions to this are Shula Marks’ and Jabulani Sithole and Sibongiseni Mkhize's excellent publications: S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence: Class, Nationalism and the State in Twentieth Century Natal (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1986); J. Sithole and S. Mkhize, ‘Truth or Lies? Selective Memories, Imagings and Representations of Chief Albert John Luthuli in Recent Political Discourses’, History and Theory, 39 (2000), 69–85. 5Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. Yet, Suttner correctly argues Luthuli did not desire violence: ‘That preference [for non-violence] was there. It is not intended to suggest that violence was in the Chief's mind from early on, certainly not for him…’ (Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 701). 8C. Hooper, Sechaba, ‘Letter in the S.A. Press’, October 1967, 7. 6Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. 7See Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697, fn 16. 9Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 713, 703. 10Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. 11Suttner confides, ‘I am reading into what Luthuli said, elaborating more than he ever did in his public statements…’ (‘The Road to Freedom’, 700). 12The Nobel Committee announced Albert Luthuli as the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize winner in October 1961, not 1960. See Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693, 698. 13Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. 14Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 694. 15S. Couper, Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2010). The biography is an edited version of my PhD dissertation: S. Couper, ‘“Bound by Faith”: A Biographic and Ecclesiastic Examination (1898–1967) of Chief Albert Luthuli's Stance on Violence as a Strategy to Liberate South Africa’ (PhD thesis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009). 16Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 695. 17Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693. 18Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 701. 19Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 700. 20Luthuli Museum, A. Luthuli, ‘[Mahatma Gandhi] Memorial on the Occasion of the Centenary Celebrations of [Howard University]’, Washington, DC, United States, original handwritten draft, 1948. 21University of Fort Hare, Howard Pim Africana Library, ANC Archives, Oliver Tambo Papers (A2561), Folder C 39, O. Tambo, ‘July 21’, original typed manuscript, July 1967: University of Fort Hare, Howard Pim Africana Library, ANC, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Exhibition, viewed on 9 July 2008. 22G. Pillay, ed., Voices of Liberation, Albert Luthuli (Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council, 1993), 152, 163. 23 Rand Daily Mail, ‘100 Brave Cold to Greet Luthuli’, 12 December 1961. Note that Luthuli made this statement days before Mandela launched MK, in retrospect, declaring Mandela irresponsible. 24A. Luthuli, ‘Our Way Is Right – We Must Keep On’, Golden City Post, 25 March 1962 (Luthuli's emphasis). 25Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 695. 26N. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (Boston, New York, Toronto and London: Bay Back Books and Little, Brown and Company, 1994), 273. 27Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697. 28Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 714. 29Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 700, fn 38. 30 Durban Daily News, ‘“Albert Would Have Rejected Today's Violence…” Mrs Albert Luthuli’, date unknown, 1985, 39. 32Couper, Bound by Faith, 181. 31Couper, Bound by Faith, 163–164. 33 Dawn: Journal of Umkhonto we Sizwe – Souvenir Issue, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of MK, ANC, 1986. 34J. Cherry, Umkhonto Wesizwe (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2011). 35N. Mandela, Conversations with Myself (London: Macmillian, 2010), 93–9-4. 36 Rand Daily Mail, ‘100 Brave Cold to Greet Luthuli’, 12 December 1961; Daily Mail, ‘I Go to See the Chief Macmillan Couldn‘t Visit’, by ‘Farlie’, 10 February 1960; Daily News, ‘Luthuli Asks: Can‘t NATS. Start Talking to Us?’, 11 February 1960. 37P. Rule, Nokukhanya: Mother of Light (Underberg: Grail, 1993), 130. 38Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 695, fn 10. 39Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 696, 714. 40Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697. 41Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697. 42Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693, 703. 43Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 44Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697. 45Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 702, fn 53. 46J. Slovo, An Unfinished Autobiography (Randburg: Ravan, 1995), 147; South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET), The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume I (1960–1970) (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), 89. 47B. Bunting, Moses Kotane: South African Revolutionary: A Political Biography (London: Inkululeko, 1975), 274. 48Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 702, fn 53. 49L. Naidoo, In the Shadow of Chief Albert Luthuli: Reflections of Goolam Suleman (Groutville: Luthuli Museum, 2010), 18–19. 50See ‘From Gandhi to Mandela: In Commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Formation of the Natal Indian Congress by Mahatma Gandhi’, Sechaba, 3, 5 (5 May 1969), 10–12. Sechaba cited M. Gandhi, ‘Declaration on Question of the Use of Violence in Defense of Rights’, Guardian, 16 December 1938. N. Mandela, ‘Epilogue: Nelson Mandela Looks at Gandhi’, in J. Wassermann, ed, A Man for All Seasons: Mohandas Gandhi (Pretoria: Voortrekker Museum, n.d.), 22. In this text, Mandela justified the resort to violence when stating: ‘Gandhi himself never ruled out violence absolutely and unreservedly. He conceded the necessity of arms in certain situations. He said, “Where a choice is set between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… I prefer the use of arms in defence of honour rather than remain the vile witness of dishounor…”’. Yet, here Gandhi speaks of a hypothetical ultimatum, neither of which extremes Gandhi would choose. Rather, Gandhi and Luthuli would choose ‘courageous non-violence’. Of course, if the choice was only cowardice or violence, Gandhi would choose the later. But, neither Gandhi nor Luthuli believed these were the only two strategies and certainly cowardice and violence were not the preferred and advocated ones. 51Couper, ‘Bound by Faith’, 105–106, 176–178. 52Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 696. 53Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 698. 54Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 693, 698. 55Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 698. 56Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 697. 57S. Couper, ‘An Embarrassment to the Congresses?: The Silencing of Chief Albert Luthuli and the Production of ANC History’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 2 (2009), 331–348. 58Publication unknown, ‘Lutuli Was Stumbling Block to Violence, Witness Says’, 22 July 1964; Newscheck, ‘An Unfulfilled Life’, 28 July 1967, 10. 59Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 709. 60Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 705. 62Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 698. 61Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 698. 63Luthuli's autobiography, Let My People Go, is the biblical refrain of Moses who out of sheer obedience repeatedly advocates to Pharaoh to release the captives. Moses repeated mantra during the seven plagues is continued no matter the failure of the previous to persuade: A. Luthuli, Let My People Go: An Autobiography (London: Collins, 1962). 65Couper, ‘When Chief Albert Luthuli Launched “Into the Deep”’, 87–88. 64S. Couper, ‘When Chief Albert Luthuli Launched “Into the Deep”: A Theological Reflection on a Homiletic Resource of Political Significance’, Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 130 (2008), 76–89 and 108–115 66‘The Turn to Armed Struggle’, the chapter in The Road to Democracy co-authored by Bernard Magubane, Philip Bonner, Jabulani Sithole, Peter Delius, Janet Cherry, Pat Gibbs and Thozama April, anachronistically cites Luthuli’s 1952 statement in a chapter about the armed struggle (1961): see B. Magubane et al., ‘The Turn to Armed Struggle’, SADET, The Road to Democracy, 53–145. 67Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 699. 68Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 705. 69Of course, this statement is true for Christians and not for first century Roman soldiers who also executed violent robbers and zealots (armed revolutionaries) on crosses. 70Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 706. 71Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’,. The cross makes Christian non-pacifists, such as myself, uncomfortable. 72Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 706, fn 72. 73Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 700. 75M. Benson, Chief Albert Lutuli of South Africa (London: Oxford University, 1963), 65 (emphasis is Benson's and therefore Luthuli's). 74Perhaps Luthuli is being legalistic. Luthuli can say this because the ANC was banned and could not formally or within a fully representative body adopt a changed strategy. Such a statement leads one to wonder to what extent the ANC made Luthuli ignorant of the Lobatse Conference in 1962 wherein the ANC unofficially officially accepted MK as the armed wing of the ANC, abandoning what Slovo termed as a ‘necessary fiction’. 76I do not subscribe to an argument wherein the ANC also claims that it never abandoned non-violent strategies by qualifying that it supported violent and nonviolent strategies simultaneously (the ‘Four Pillars’ mantra). 77D. Tutu ‘Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?’, in C. Villa-Vicencio, ed,, Theology & Violence: The South African Debate (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans, 1988), 3, 77. 78S. Couper, ‘Luthuli and Kairos’, in The Nonconformist, 1 (2007), 32–43. 79B. Pityana, ‘Tumultuous Response: The Voices of the South African Churches, in P. Webb, ed., A Long Struggle: The Involvement of the World Council of Churches in South Africa (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 1994), 84–101. 80Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703–704. 81Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 82Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 701. 83Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 702. 84Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 702. 85Naidoo, In the Shadow of Chief Albert Luthuli, 71. 86It is true that within his Nobel speech, Luthuli ‘tipped his cap’ as an affirming recognition that in colonial contexts that were administrative rather than settler, violence was used as a means to establish justice (as the metropoles would not have a decisive military advantage and the functionaries would simply return to the metropoles). For Luthuli, South Africa constituted a radically different context (Exceptionalism) that required the avoidance of violence at all costs. 87Rule, Nokukhanya, 131. 88Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 702. 89Rule, Nokukhanya, 130–138. 90Rule, Nokukhanya, 138. 91Rule, Nokukhanya, 138. 92Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 93Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 94Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 95Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 703. 96Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 712. 97Couper, ‘An Embarrassment to the Congresses?’, 331–348. 98Charlotte Owen and Peter Corbett produced an audio-visual documentary and investigated Luthuli's death. I. Shevlin, ‘The Chief‘s Voice Is Heard Again’, Sunday Tribune Magazine, 18 July 1993, 3. 99Rule, Nokukhanya, 135. 100Rule, Nokukhanya, 137. 101T. Sellström, ed., Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa, Vol. I, Formation of a Popular Opinion 1950–1970 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2003), 241. 102Rule, Nokukhanya, 140. 103Suttner, ‘The Road to Freedom’, 713. 104A. Luthuli, ‘Why I Believe in Non-Violence’, Golden City Post, 28 May 1961. 105J. Zuma, ‘Chief Albert Luthuli Memorial Lecture by His Excellency President Jacob Zuma at Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre’, Durban, 24 November 2010 found at: http://www.info.gov.za/speech/DynamicAction?pageid_461&sid_14832&tid_24964, accessed 7 February 2011; S. Couper, ‘Irony upon Irony upon Irony: The Mythologising of Nationalist History in South Africa’, South African Historical Journal, 63, 2 (2011), 339–346; S. Khumalo, ‘Zuma Slams Luthuli Claims’, The Mercury, 25 November 2010.

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